A Japanese bar has been ordered shut after they mistakenly served bleach to their customers instead of sake, hospitalising two customers who apparently did not notice they were downing a cleaning agent.

The Niigata prefecture izakaya served two men in their sixties sake one evening, but soon both were complaining of sore throats.

They were later admitted to hospital, and it was discovered they had been chugging an alkaline cleaning solution rather than the booze they expected. Neither man was severely injured by the tipple.

Local authorities investigated the bar and discovered their staff had for some reason poured the detergent into a labelled 1.8 litre sake bottle, and then mistaken it for actual sake and served it to the customers.

They punished the bar by ordering them to stay shut for a grand total of 3 days.

The bar has issued a boilerplate statement of contrition:

“We caused great inconvenience to our patrons. We will ensure this never happens again by properly managing our cleaning agents and instructing our staff.”

Both the bar and authorities are silent as to what all this implies about the expected quality of their beverages (or the discerning palette of their patrons).

The article clearly states that the Bleach was poured into a sake bottle for some unknown reason. You also realize that both liquids are a clear substance so it's hard to distinguish between the two unless you actually try to smell it, which in a bar environment would be hard considering the smell of cigarettes and booze would linger about making everything that much harder.

Depends on the bleach, there are various kinds of viscosity and colour, which should serve as an indication about what it is. I guess in this case, the bleach was clear? But we will never know....maybe the staff was retarded, sleepy, drunk, etc. not much details other than, they fucked up.

I have to agree about the bar setting being a possible factor in this case.

No shit son...why dont you read what i wrote too.... Im asking a question and you reply with a quote that sumerizes with doubt about what transpired. Key word in your quote is FOR SOME REASON, and that reason is what we are talking about.
Why dont you take an english course on literary analysis before attempting to correct others.

Ah, parent was thinking of surstrommung. And that is evil beyond the wildest plaguedreams of lutefisk (which is unpleasant, but possibly could be an acquired place - if you were stranded on a lifeboat with nothing to eat but the fishwrong that is lute).

AFAIK surstrommung is illegal to transport by air as its contents - fermented and pressurised - are likely to go pop and either cause damage to aircraft or, more likely, to result in insurance claims against the airliner for ruined other people's luggage.

Local authorities investigated the bar and discovered their staff had for some reason poured the detergent into a labelled 1.8 litre sake bottle, and then mistaken it for actual sake and served it to the customers.

There would be practically no chance of that working, so that is extremely unlikely. The patrons are obviously going to notice that something is not right after the first swig, and most people would notice the smell even before tasting it. While bleach could technically kill someone if they drank a lot of it and didn't seek medical help, the chances of that happening would be pretty slim.

The bleach may have not even have been full strength. Since it was in a different bottle, that may have been because it was diluted with water. That could also explain why the smell was less noticeable.

No one said that murderers are always bright. I can very well see a murderer trying this and having it fail on him.... hell, come to think of it, they had someone try to kill their child in this manner 5 years ago in the state where I live.

I worked at a host club in Tohoku as a singer where my friend was a manager. Before work, the hosts would fill up expensive bottles of liquor with cheaper alcohol. Of course there would be true bottles, but once a patron was drunk enough, they'd switch to the fake bottles.